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Previously, the author took a look at the international charters for children, and the social impact on the Middle East. Now, the author looks at the implications for Africa and elsewhere. This also includes North African countries.
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The document "Africa Fit for Children" states:
"Any customs, traditions, cultural or religious practices that contradict with children's rights should not be supported"
The document even goes further to interfere in the religious practices if they are seen to contradict with children's rights; and here the judgment would be according to how children's rights are seen by the makers of such conventions and documents.
"It is prohibited to subject the child to any abusive or illegal action in his private life; however, parents have the right in reasonable supervision; the child has the right in legal protection from such interventions".
According to this document, parents only have the right to supervise; the parents' role is limited to mere supervision. If a parent interferes more, like advising the child, the law should interfere in this situation to put limits for the parent's intervention.
"Marriage of children is prohibited. Efficient measures, including laws, should be taken in order to specify the minimum age of marriage which is 18 years for males and females and for prohibiting marriage before that age even if they reached puberty".
According to this document, childhood extends to 18 years of age. Here we could see the contradiction in the fact that if an adolescent girl becomes pregnant we should give her all the care and support when marriage for those under 18 has been prohibited by the document - the girl and the Ma'thun (marriage official) would be convicted.
- "All member states should take all the suitable measures in order to allow pregnant girls to continue with their education"
What is provocative here is when we see the two items together – in the same instance where marriage is being prohibited for girls under 18 years, pregnant girls should be given care and support to continue their education. It is very provocative when you see the two articles together.
This draft document was presented by the government of Brazil on June, 18, 2007 and up for discussion in September 2008 to be added to CRC.
We will just take one article of this document:
"Special attention should be paid to the establishment and promotion of support and care services for single and adolescent parents and their children. States should ensure that adolescent parents retain all rights inherent to their status both as parents and as children, including access to all appropriate services for their own development, allowances to which parents are entitled, and their inheritance rights. Measures should be adopted to ensure the protection of pregnant adolescents and to guarantee that they do not interrupt their studies. Efforts should also be made to reduce stigma attached to single and adolescent parenthood." (Article 37)
"Single parents" - this includes mothers who have had babies outside of marriage, the father leaves the mother with her baby and maybe he is not aware that he is the father. A mother may have two or three babies from different fathers, and she may not know to which father each child belongs.
When the document stresses provide support and care services for "adolescent parents" and "pregnant adolescents", and gives them the rights entitled to them as children and as parents; and it urges "reducing the stigma attached to single and adolescent parenthood" it is by this approving adolescent sex and having babies outside the context of marriage since it convicts marriage for adolescents under the age of 18.
The danger of such document is that it is going to be attached to CRC; our Muslim and Arab governments have ratified Convention of Children's Rights (CRC) and hence they would be obliged to implement all of its items.
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Some would wonder why Arab and Muslim countries would accept to sign such agreements which in many parts contradict with the Islamic Sharî'ah and the Islamic cultural identity. Through my readings and experiences, I could tell you the different stages that take place in order to make Arab and Muslim countries finally sign and implement such agreements.
First Stage:
States are told to sign the agreements with reservations. States would accept to sign as long as they are going to sign with reservations.
Second Stage:
When an international convention is signed by a state, the convention should be then ratified by its parliament.
Third Stage:
When the convention has been ratified, international pressures would be exerted on states in order to take away their reservations on the claim that the convention includes an article that ensures the application of the convention according to national laws so why not take away the reservations; accordingly, states start to remove their reservations.
Fourth Stage – Changing National Laws:
After states are persuaded to remove their reservations which were based on the Islamic Sharî`ah – Islamic Sharî`ah is fixed and cannot be changed. States are persuaded to remove the reservations on the claim that they would be allowed to apply their national laws – national laws are variable and could be easily changed at any time.
States would then be asked to change their national laws to make them conform with the International convention. States would be told that they have no other option because once signed and ratified a state becomes obliged to abide by the convention, and this implies changing the national laws and putting the convention into action. In the end we have changes in national laws that are related to the family, women and children to make them in conformity with the International conventions.
Changing national laws is not difficult; and now we hear every now and then how Arab, Muslim and African states change their national laws in order to conform with International conventions and charters.
Thus, the final product of this whole process is for national laws to conform to International Conventions. These same stages are applied in each and every international convention like CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women), CRC(Convention on the Rights of the Child) and others.
- Childhood Extends to the Age of 18 Years.
A 1-year old, a 9-year old and a 18-year old are to be treated on the same basis - this is illogical. This is opposing to the Islamic Sharî`ah. In some communities an 18-year old boy may be a father of a 1-year old baby.
- Identical Treatment of Males and Females in All Aspects; this is different from equality which is a humanitarian value as equality in dignity, etc.
This equalization is applied through including the concept of "gender"; the word "gender" translates into Arabic as "type"; sex includes male and female only, while gender (=type) includes males, females and others e.g. gay, lesbian, etc; Until now gender includes 6 categories until new categories are "discovered."
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Male
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Female
♀
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Gender
♂/♀
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Thus, homosexual marriages would penetrate into our Muslim societies unabated through the inclusion of the concept of "gender" and "gender equality" meaning giving equal rights for all sexual types included under their concept of "gender". Homosexual people would have the right to marry, to devise, to have all the rights of heterosexuals.
In 2004, a bill was proposed that gave "unconventional" couples the right to inheritance, paying taxes and having social insurance equal to those of conventional couples; the bill was refused, but this was an indication of the change taking place.
Roles of both sexes are formulated by the social, economic and cultural circumstances and not by the biological differences.
The argument is: a man is a man because his community led him to be a man, not because he was born to be a man; a man gets married, becomes a father and household head because his community wants it so, and similarly a woman gets married and becomes a mother because her society wanted her to be like this not because she was created as a female.
A society nurtures a child to be a boy through activities that suit boys, clothes, sports, etc. Similarly a society nurtures a child to be a girl through activities like towards motherhood, in the home, through clothes, sports, etc. in the end this socialization would specify who would be male and would be female. Accordingly, parents should not buy a horse for their baby boy and should not buy a doll for their baby girl in order not to implant a sense of gender discrimination in children. The UN response to this in 2004 was, "All these notions are consequences of the inclusion of the concept of "gender."
One of the American universities that adopted gender equality principles and included them in its policies had a gender neutral restroom.
We are so much concerned about such practices, because we Muslim states have signed and ratified such agreements and are supposed to implement such agreements in our societies.
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In adopting any concept or terminology we have to take into consideration the cultural background that secreted such terminology, we have to live in the environment that created such term in order to know what the term exactly means according to that environment.
For example our Muslim environment created a term called "Al Qawama"; Qawama, according to our Islamic culture means care, protection, spending, responsibility, consultation. According to UN and the West, "Qawama" means conflicting power relations inside the family, domination of man over woman, violence, etc, because western communities are conflicting communities. UN and the West in general do not have the right to define and understand a term that is a secretion of our Islamic culture in their own way. Similarly, a term like "gender" that is a secretion of western culture could not be understood and defined according to our Islamic culture, it has to be understood according to their culture.
International conventions are written in English language; English versions include the specific meaning of the term because it is the language by which the convention was written; translated versions include translations that differ from the exact meaning of the term. For example, in Arabic versions of CRC and CEDAW "gender equality" was translated as to mean "equality between males and females"; this is the reason why Muslim states accepted to sign such conventions. However, Muslim states are made to sign the English versions and hence are made to implement the term as it came in the English version.
Hence, one of the main principles of international conventions is ultimate identical treatment between males and females; any difference in any aspects should be eliminated; like differences in inheritance, in the legal age of marriage, in roles.
- Stressing Aspects of Child Rights
- Emphasis on the rights of the child at the expense of his duties; giving children more and more rights without any duties. Every right has an equivalent duty but these conventions are just stressing on the rights of the child and not mentioning their duties; this creates imbalance within children.
- Sexual and reproductive health rights are considered human rights; hence if a government refuses to implement sex education programs (as defined by these conventions) in its schools, that government would be considered to violate human rights. Hence, we should be aware that in convention when the term "human rights" is mentioned that includes sexual and reproductive rights.
- Child Empowerment:
Also, the term "empowerment" is not accurately translated in Arabic versions; it is translated into the Arabic word meaning "strengthening and consolidating," while the English word "empowerment" means giving power and implies giving power over others and making one independent from others.
Means of child empowerment include:
Through which children can complain about their parents.
This means having development projects for the child independent of their parents. In 2004, during "World Fit for Children" convention, IICWC (International Islamic Committee for Woman and Children) as a non-governmental organization asked the general manager of UNICEF at that time - why create developmental projects for the child only, a child is a part of his family; the reply was that, "…that this is not our concern; our concern is the child, to make him economically independent from his family".
- Sexual and Reproductive Rights
These rights are independent of the family
Following are procedures taken for the implementation of all international treaties, not only child conventions:
i) National governmental agencies, councils, etc.
II) changing national laws to conform with the international conventions.
Note: USA is the only country that did not sign CRC. The US refused to ratify it claiming that US national law is superior to International law. Somalia signed CRC, but did not ratify it and thus it is experiencing much pressure.
- Non Governmental Organizations
NGOs play a vital role. Some items in international conventions and charters are difficult to implement and include in national laws, some items would face strong resistance from the society and the culture like the inclusion of sex education in school programs; NGOs start getting funds in order to play as local agents for implementing such items. They penetrate into the society gradually. In Egypt, for example, one of the NGOs, agreed with a school principal in one of the village schools and started training students on how to use condoms; implementation of such charters that oppose our Islamic Sharî'ah, our culture and our identity have already started taking place in our societies in spite of our disapproval.
This is the tool through which NGOs act as local agents for implementing the international conventions.
These mechanisms form a cycle that starts with international conferences; these international conferences result in international charters. Then comes the international monitoring over the implementation of the international charters through the role of national machineries and NGOs – national machineries submit the official or governmental reports, while NGOs submit shadow reports. Governmental reports were found to convey that everything is going well and abiding by the international charters; governments get aids depending on how well they abide by the international conventions and hence are keen to convey a very positive image of the situation while the situation is not good in reality. Thus, NGOs are generously funded in order to submit shadow reports that convey the real situation in the society.
UN which struggles to make sexual and reproductive rights of the child as human rights, did it do anything for the simplest of human rights which is the right to life?!
We should stop and think beyond what is being said, we should not get caught by the very nice words of caring for the rights of the child and his best interest. What did UN do for the children of Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia?? Isn't UN working with double standards and double treatment?? There is a choice, but we must be clear what those choices are in order to stand up for them.
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